Opened a decade ago, European was a new concept for Melbourne. Eating there was like returning to a bistro in France. For fairly high prices, it still serves good and better Mediterranean-inspired offerings. The once-quirky wine list of almost exclusively European drops has soared to stratospheric prices and is no longer acceptable. Small round tables and crowds have lost a lot of their charm.

None of those is complex, thrilling or overworked, but properly cooked simplicity at a fairly hefty price.

Four large counters of brawn, ham hock and potato terrine ($21) left me a little flat. Composed of a fine mince punctuated with the occasional potato cube, the terrine was good but unspectacular. A smear of mustard, long oval of toasted baguette and a tart little salad of peas, peeled broad beans, radish discs and pickled vegies such as red-pepper hanks and carrot accompanied.

Poured on to a deep bowl containing a portion of fish fillet, a mussel, a prawn tail, calamari rings, a clam in its shell, a huge counter of scallop adductor muscle and probably other aquatic bits and pieces, a fish soup ($21.50) was just OK. It could have done with more boiling down to intensify taste.

Mains were very much better. A wild rabbit, leek and prune pie ($35) was a ripper, a real pie with cooked flaky pastry crust encasing a sweet and very flavoursome filling. The pie sat on a fry-up of several sorts of fungi and was surrounded by a limpid, sticky rabbit juice studded with bits of organic prunes. Lightly floured and pan-roasted, a whole john dory (a special at $37.50) was of regulation taste, its skin lightly tanned and dribbled with a citric emulsion.

Six desserts finished, and a perfect fez of chocolate salty caramel ($16) was like a Greek shipping magnate – rich, libidinous and slightly briny. It came with sour-cream ice cream and roasted peanuts, some encased in chocolate.

STAFF

A bit sniffy to start with, European's staff provided me with special surveillance once the notebook came out. A busy place, the cadence of our meal was a little slow.

DRINK

You and I don't care, of course, how many bottles of Petrus 2004 grace a wine list (at $2695). Or even how many drops are priced in the hundreds of dollars.

European's wine list is amazing (and almost exclusively European.) When the cheapest bottles are in the $40s and the five table whites, a rose' and five reds available by glass cost $10.50-$16, we're in for an abstemious night.

Three Australian house wines are made in the European tradition, whatever that twee, exclusive remark means. A Bordeaux rose' is $44 and a Gerard Tremblay Chablis $12.50 a glass.

X-FACTOR

This is a personal view. Whereas it might have been seen as fun years ago to crowd diners on to small, close tables, the idea has worn thin with me. We were put in a corridor that varied from a little over 1-2m beside the kitchen. European's timber panelling and general fatigue need a bit of a lift.

VALUE

You pay a fair bit for OK and better, simple bistro tucker here. Whether you like crowds and small tables will affect your assessment of the value.